New Tool Could Help in Testing for H.G.H.

A test similar to one used in cancer treatments has antidoping officials encouraged that they have found a new, and important, way to catch athletes using human growth hormone.

MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

A test similar to one used in cancer treatments has antidoping officials encouraged that they have found a new, and important, way to catch athletes using human growth hormone.

The test uses the same science that detects bone and breast cancer. A laboratory technician takes several milliliters of blood and spins the sample in a centrifuge. The blood is then mixed with chemicals, a reaction occurs and an instrument is used to measure the illumination in the blood.

The intensity of the light, antidoping experts say, signals whether the person has used H.G.H. over the past 10 to 14 days. The procedure is known as the biomarkers test.

Antidoping officials are usually eager to trumpet new testing methods, and skeptics have at times accused them of overstating scientific developments. Nevertheless, the officials maintain that the biomarkers test is a significant advancement over the current test for human growth hormone. That test can only detect H.G.H. that has been used in the previous 24 to 48 hours.

Officials for the World Anti-Doping Agency, which oversees the testing protocols of Olympic athletes and many professional athletes outside the United States, said that after more than a decade of research, the biomarkers test was only months from being put into use on athletes.

The introduction of the test by WADA will probably intensify the debate over H.G.H. blood testing that is taking place in Major League Baseball and the N.F.L. The debate intensified last month after a professional rugby player in England was suspended after testing positive for H.G.H. It was the first time that an athlete had been suspended for an H.G.H. positive in the six years that testing has been used, and it clearly made an impression on officials in baseball and the N.F.L.

Since the suspension, the N.F.L. has said that it has asked its players union to accept blood testing for H.G.H. Baseball’s commissioner, Bud Selig, has asked his deputies to pursue the quick implementation of the existing H.G.H. test in the minor leagues, where the consent of baseball’s players union is not required.

In turn, officials of the two unions have expressed reservations about the existing test, which they point out has caught only one athlete. Adding to their caution is that there has never been blood testing for performance-enhancing drugs in either league.

But even as the H.G.H. debate continues, the science of H.G.H. testing has progressed.

David Howman, the director general of WADA, said that he believed that the biomarkers test would make it harder for anyone in the N.F.L. and Major League Baseball to argue that there were not viable tests for H.G.H.

“The other test is scientifically reliable, and so is the new one,” Howman said. “Anyone who tells you otherwise hasn’t looked at the science.”

According to antidoping officials, the creators of the test said that they set the threshold for a positive extremely high, similar to other levels used in tests conducted by WADA.

H.G.H. is a naturally occurring substance in the body. Injections of it are believed to decrease fat and increase muscle growth. In any number of instances, it has been used by athletes who are rehabilitating after injuries. In the United States, it is illegal to possess H.G.H. without a prescription, and its use as a performance-enhancer is banned by all major sports around the world.

“H.G.H. has been used with great impunity since the 1970s,” Howman said. “It’s very available to athletes. They use it freely, and they usually don’t use things that can’t help them.”

The biomarkers test detects chemicals in the body that are raised when H.G.H. levels spike; the existing blood test simply detects the presence of synthetic H.G.H. Because the tests take different measurements, antidoping officials say that both will be used in the future.

“They are complementary,” said Larry Bowers, the chief science officer for the United States Anti-Doping Agency. “The biomarkers test can’t detect use in the first 48 hours, so that is why you use both of them. It’s another tool for us to use.”

Travis Tygart, the head of Usada, said: “It’s obviously very significant and it is why over the past several years, we have invested money in not just the direct test but the new marker test. We knew that the two of them would provide a significant deterrent.”

The N.F.L.’s top drug testing official, Adolpho Birch, said in a statement that the league was aware of the biomarkers test and was following its development.

“Our advisers keep us informed on the scientific progress and we are in regular contact with Usada and WADA officials,” Birch said. “The Partnership for Clean Competition, a research consortium that we founded along with other partners, recently held a conference at which the state of the research in this area was thoroughly discussed.”

A spokesman for the N.F.L. Players Association did not return e-mail or telephone messages seeking comment. Nor did a spokesman for the baseball players union. Rob Manfred, baseball’s top drug-testing official, said in a statement that the commissioner’s office was looking into the test and consulting with its medical adviser.

The antidoping officials, meanwhile, said they were in the final stages of reviewing the science behind the biomarkers test.

“At the end of the day, it’s about clean athletes,” Tygart said. “They ought to demand it. You don’t want to play in a sport where you don’t have the capabilities of testing for potent substances like human growth hormone that are significant performance-enhancers.”